The Half-Life
by Weeping Willow Factory
Summary: "Fate is warped in a sense...you can change it sometimes, but it can also change you. Children grow up...but memories don't and often can't." Frank Iero/Shiloh


A figure stood in screaming weather.

The cold pink sky swirled faster, weeping into the shadowed ear. It twisted long, tangled locks of winter black hair. The figure…a small girl, looked without making a sound at the creaking house as the faint pitch of the radio whisper- cried from the inside ," Tornado warning…Tornado warning, this is a Tornado warning from the county, everyone must- phzzzz-everyone must –pshzzzz- e-very- to-pro- phchzzz – tect….familie-pzzzzzzm".

The doll house was twelve feet wide and a foot shorter. It was beautiful back in its day. It held four human dolls…

A mother who cleans and cooks and splinters fingers through broken pots and pans.

A Father, with bent wooden knees and sawdust in his mouth.

A stranger in a brothers body wrapped in nails and pointy fingers.

The last doll, had escaped the dark room with writings on the walls. She had ripped the glue off her wobbly legs and stumbled into the chaos of the outside world, freed at last.

This was a house. It was beautiful back in its day.

The trees cry louder than before and the rain rips through the shutters. The sky claps loudly and beats up the shingles with a gray battered hammer before laughing at the wasted dream.

Pink vanishes as the gray reaches the trembling girl, blessing her eyes and fading them to black and white.

The doll house began to wheeze.

"_Do you know what happens to little girls when they grow up?"_

"_No…no you wouldn't"_

"_It hurts you see…but they don't know that."_

"_**That just means you're alive"**_

The rain murders its way through oak and pine. It travels down and up and down, a frightened rollercoaster.

Somewhere inside a house a lonely dog nudges the red cloth on his favorite smiling toy. It squeaks once, wilts twice, and balloons to life the next second.

The grey loops, peeping in peepholes. Black pants shuffle out the door, a black watch slapped on.

The sky is curious.

It tingles, shifts, and hovers into the clearing.

It eats moss as it shovels underground; water from the storm melts the rough dirt away. It digs and cries, digs and cries, digs and cries.

In the midst of everything it runs. Lightning kicks at the sight.

The light blue appears, faint and horrifying from the mud, with a small secret. In a day the secret will be revealed. In a month it will eat someone alive, in a year it will cease to care. The story of a life short lived. The story of smiling bruises.

This is the story of a half-life.

She was up before sunrise. Softly, she pitter-pattered, maroon-colored socks on brown hardwood floors. Tiny creases on an almost translucently white shirt, reached quivering knees from a ridiculous length. She hoisted it up sleepily, tucking it hastily into marine blue pants that once, had been vivid. The white creases wrinkled as the tiny face pressed on the ice glass window. There was quiet in the house.

A teenager flitted by the neighborhood on a flaming red bike, no hands and flying pedals. She smiled, pressing her lips to the window and shivered as the cold of yesterday's storm seeped into her breathing cheeks and froze them over.

She had been sent up to her room again.

She wasn't supposed to go out into the grass, into the rain, when they weren't there…but they were never there. And when they were there it was better if they weren't. "Because", thought the girl, "If things just vanished, sometimes it helps."

If things just…disappeared.

Cason had been laughing. Only he could laugh through lightning.

Cason had locked her door, but she'd gotten out. She'd figured it out, finally.

As soon as she pressed her ear to the silent wall and heard snoring she made her move.

They yelled at her so much when they found out. Cason said she'd made the huge mess in the living room. He said she'd run out and refused to come back in after he called her…that he'd been watching her the whole time.

She told them the truth, saying she liked the rain and when there was thunder it was scarier when you were inside because you couldn't see what was going on. Rain was special, and lightning was pretty if you saw it from the outside. She felt the house was going to fall with all its creaking and once she'd seen the exterior she verified it to be true. It was falling.

Her mother did what she always did, calling the person with time and pills. Dr. Fresbeth, in charge of colds, lollipops and threats to children.

She'd climbed on to Daddy's lap only to be pushed off. Harsh words were inscribed and once she'd gotten to her room she feared Cason.

Up the stairs, with pre-meditated steps.

Creak, Creak, Creak…

When everyone had fallen asleep.

The girl closed her eyes and kissed the wet glass.

It left a small burst of popcorn shaped mouth on it.

She slipped on her rain boots, her vast blue raincoat that swallowed up her limbs…two buttons at a time.

There was a time Cason had taught her how to do that. There was a time she loved her brother's voice and was unafraid.

" _Do you know what happens to little girls when they grow up?"_

Two steps at a time to the kitchen.

The sun pretended to be happy as she ate jam and bread. She lifted her backpack and like every morning before even the neighbors dogs had woken up she stepped outside and ran, all the way to the local park. One block from her house. With an excitement that surpassed finding treasure she frantically and awkwardly climbed the monkey bars like Cason had taught her a long time ago. Back when they told stories. Before he'd been away to sleep away camp.

Now there were scratches all along the rungs. But she grunted, cheeks puffing and huffing, until red faced and glorious she managed to swing her legs up and over so she sat on top of the rusted monkey bars.

She exhaled wildly and grinned.

She loved waiting. She always had. There was an excitement to waiting that she never grew tired of. Even for horrible things, waiting was part of the fun.

Waiting for the school bus was loads of fun.

Going to school…was a different thing. But she reminded herself that even for horrible things waiting was great.

It made her skin jump and she felt her shoes swing in front of her, victorious.

Two months ago she'd been a fifth grader. She didn't consider herself a sixth grader until June had gone by, even though she'd already been a sixth grader the last day of school. But she thought June sounded like a month of fifth grader's, pasty and claustrophobic. July yelled "Sixth grade!" at the top of its lungs without a care in the world.

When she was sure it was safe to call it, she walked home and told her mother "I'm a sixth grader now."

"You were a sixth grader a month ago," her mother said rubbing her forehead as she counted onions for dinner.

"I know YOU think I was, but now I really am" she said bouncing on her toes.

Her mother gave her a long look, "Shiloh I don't have time for this now…"

"Now it's legit "she said walking away.

She did not know what "Legit" meant; she'd heard a seventh grader say the word once and immediately liked it. She didn't know what it meant but it was worth it, leaving a confused mother behind and pretending she knew a special word.

She promptly walked into her room and filled it with paper, because now she would paint even more, well on her way to fill her room with drawings. Her first one, being a skull and crossbones with scarlet roses in the background. Her mother had torn it from the wall and thrown it in the trashcan, telling her she'd slap her should she put it up again.

She taped it back together and hung it higher on the wall. She wrote "Legit" in bold red across it.

Because that's what sixth graders do.

7:15 a.m.

There was a low rumbling, deep like waves crashing on pavement.

The school bus was here.

She jumped off, tearing through the sidewalk and skip-sprinting to the rumbles that grew louder with each stride. Her long sleeved jacket reached her fingertips and made it harder to run. She pushed it up to her elbows and ran faster.

_Before Cason gets there,_ _Before Cason gets there, Before Cason ge-_

"Hey Stupid where the hell were you?!"

Too late.

The long arm crashed into her chest and scrunched up the front part of her jacket. She almost screamed in fright but calmed herself down enough to remember the bus was coming.

Cason did nothing bad in front of witnesses.

"Nowhere Cason, I-I was just at the-"

"Park? The park right?"

He pushed his plastic face close to hers, and smelled of peanut butter. "I told you not to go there alone; I get in trouble because of you!"

He shoved her hard, but she managed to not fall on the hard pavement. She didn't mention that he never got in trouble because he blamed her for most of the troubles in the house and even his own.

"I-I'm sorry" she huffed softly "I was jus-"

"Just what?" he said shoving her again "Sniffing the shit smelling flowers again?"

"I don't sniff flowers, "she retorted cautiously "I collect them sometimes…they attract bees"

She almost smiled remembering "Once Cason, there was this really fat bee and it was so fluffy…Cason remember when we used to be scared of them because they were so fat? That was f-"

"Shut up!" he screamed in her face, making her scrunch up.

"Yes Cason" she said quietly.

He pulled her close by the shoulders as she saw yellow in the distance, lumbering down the street towards them, "Talk to me again motherfucker and I swear I'll do it again"

"No Cason…please" she said, ready to cry from terror welling up inside, threatening nausea.

"Don't do it then" he said harshly pushing her away as if he was throwing her up.

She hunched her shoulders a little bit, and shoved her fists into her pockets trying not to make noise.

"Here she comes" he muttered under his breath and clicked his teeth.

Through the fog came the yellow bus and stopped in front of them. The doors opened and there sat the bus driver, Gloria Davis.

Gloria Davis wore too much blush.

She glared at Cason and Shiloh as they walked in.

The moment Shiloh dreaded the most…

"Cason!", came a voice from the back of the bus. Three or four boys waved at the air frantically and he pinched her hard before he left, reminding her to not look at him, or even breath near him.

The bad thing about being picked up last, the glinting faces of judgment stared at her, snickering.

Kids muttered "weird one", "strange girl", "alone…" whispers that penetrated and haunted for days.

She wasn't new. She just wasn't wanted.

Suddenly her skin went cold as she heard a voice she'd only heard in the dark of her room before," Well well, look who it is."

There was a bang and the haunting shifted to shadow another kid.

The entire back row was laughing as a short boy with brown hair was staring at Cason, face pale and calm but unsure at the same time.

"Frankie, Frankie where have you been? Last time I saw you you were kneeling in those preppy little pews of yours. Where's your tie Catholic boy?"

The laughing climaxed. "Be quiet and get in your seats, unless you all want detention soon as we get there!" Gloria Davis roared.

The boy who Cason had called "Frankie" tried to get out peacefully, and started to walk into the aisle to find another seat. The bus lurched.

"Get a seat!" Gloria bellowed as the bus moved. Cason pushed the kid violently into the lap of an enormous girl with blonde hair.

The boy looked like he was ripping things up in his mind and killing half the world as he fell into a seat near the front.

Shiloh who had been watching intently, almost sat on someone's lap. At which point her moment of being invisible slipped right from under her.

"She wet her pants!" yelled a fellow sixth grader, pointing at a wet spot behind her on her pants.

She remembered the rain. The monkey bars had surely gotten wet from the rain.

She closed her eyes as laughing retook itself into a new form.

Even when you're an adult "wetting" your pants was the worst. With kids forget about it.

They will never let you go.

She clumsily sat in the only seat left. Near the dirty window in the middle row.

She would always be this way. She would always sit in this seat, it was the only thing destined for her.

Once she got to school it would be the same.

That's why she preferred bees to classmates.

She glanced back at Cason, who snickered at her as one of his friends threw a banana peel at her seat.

She burrowed her face into her arms and pulled her knees to her chest, before she closed her eyes she saw the boy her brother had supposedly known from somewhere before,scratching something into the back of the bus seat.

His brow was furrowed in concentration as he wrote two letters with a broken paper clip.

"No"

That's all he wrote. He pushed the paper clip back in his backpack and jammed his fists in his pockets as he glared slightly staring out the window.

It was something perfect to her, something new. A quiet rebellion. The boy smiled a little as they passed a barking dog near the firehouse, he leaned closer to look.

She looked at him curiously. He was happy and mad at the same time. That was equivalent to madness in her house.

She had the feeling he liked to wait for things too, maybe even at parks.


End file.
